


An evening at Swerve's

by MorteMistrata



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Gen, M/M, just a day at the bar, swerve loves his idiots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-23
Updated: 2018-02-23
Packaged: 2019-03-22 19:28:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13770948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MorteMistrata/pseuds/MorteMistrata
Summary: Just a look at the patron's of Swerve's bar, and their various conversations, which Swerve totally was not eavesdropping on.





	An evening at Swerve's

Swerve dries off the last glass, and sets it down on the shelf behind him. He watches it for a moment, and then adjusts it so that it’s perfectly in line with the others. Ultra Magnus has been frequenting his bar more often lately, and seems to find joy in locating infractions in the smallest things. As a result, Swerve’s taken up some slightly OCD tendencies in order to prevent being monologued to for the entirety of an evening;. He shudders at the memory.

 

“I want to drink away my sorrows. Got anything for that?” Brainstorm says dramatically, slumping over his just cleaned bar.

 

Swerve takes down a medium sized glass- out of all of his patrons, Brainstorm is grouped in the ‘Likely to actually pay off his tab after racking up a nights worth of drinks’ category- and mixes together what he likes to call ‘The Quantum kick’, because one time, he’d given it to Trailcutter, and he’d somehow traveled to like, five different sections of the ship while under its influence without remembering the traveling in-between. He sets it down in front of Brainstorm, and pours out a regular, quadruple filtered cube for himself.

 

“Of course I do. That’s like- the entire purpose of a bar. Or, well, maybe not the _entire_ purpose, but like, sixty-six percent, at the very least.” Swerve takes a sip of his energon. Ah, the perks of owning your own bar. Brainstorm picks up his glass. “No, hold up, wait a second! Before you get totally hammered, _why_ do you suddenly feel the need to ‘drown your sorrows’?”

 

“My exact words were ‘drink away my sorrows’, firstly, and secondly,” Brainstorm drops a datapad on the table. Swerve picks it up and scrolls through it. He notes some mediocre drawings of what looks like a regular gun, with some notes scrawled beside it in various half-formed sentences. “It’s because of _that._ ”

 

“And ‘that’ is?”

 

“It’s supposed to be a Whirl-proof gun! Everything I let him use gets broken in less than,” He pauses and counts on his fingers. “Like, an hour! I told him that I was going to stop letting him test my stuff if he kept breaking them, and then he told me that if I were any good at designing weapons, they’d survive his ‘awesomeness’. His words, not mine.” Brainstorm retracts his mask and gulps the energon down. He chokes on it for a second, and then belches. Swerve can see it start to take effect as he shoulders slump, and his optics flare. “But the only way I can think of, is to make the trigger too small for his claws, but you know what? That’s only avoiding the problem.”

 

“Uh,”

 

“The slagger’s ruined me! I’m not a genius. A genius would be able to figure this out. A genius would-” Brainstorm sits up so fast, that it startles Swerve. He jumps, and nearly drops a glass onto the ground. “I’ve got it, Swerve. I’ve figured it out, I’ve just gotta-” He stands up, and staggers two or three steps before falling flat on his face.

 

“No weapon-making whilst- while?- oh forget it. You’re drunk, my friend.” Swerve grabs his empty glass and starts to clean it. “Can someone take him back to his suite?” He calls out. As a rule, if someone passes out drunk, someone else will always volunteer to get them back safely; it’s kinda like their own version of the Earth concept of a ‘designated driver’. Everyone is quiet for a moment, until finally, Atomizer sighs, and stands up.

 

“I got this one.” He grabs Brainstorm, and slumps him over his shoulder, the starts out the door.

 

“Thanks.”

 

Swerve sets the glass down on the shelf, in the same spot that he’d put it in the first time he’d cleaned it. He surveys it, and then shifts it to the left an inch so that they are all spaced apart equally. When he turns around, Skids and Nautica have taken seats at the end of the bar, and are apparently deep in an argument. Swerve already knows what they’ll be having; two triple filtered shots of engex, flavored with nickel shavings for Nautica, and a cube of slightly heated traitor’s engex for Skids. He sets them down in front of them before they even place their orders.

 

“Thanks, Swerve.” Nautica says, only pausing for a moment to taste it before turning back to Skids. “It’s completely stupid. There’s no way that would happen, nope, not at all. I mean, really. Just-just-”

 

“Just what?”

 

“Argh. I don’t even know. It just seems too unlikely.”

 

Swerve’s audio receptors are perked. This sounds like gossip, or the precursor to it, anyways. If it had been anyone else, he wouldn’t’ve bothered asking, but these two don’t know about his chatterbox reputation, and might actually tell him without him having to get them properly drunk first. “What’s unlikely?”

 

Skids sips at his engex, and turns on his stool to face Swerve. “I think that Brainstorm and Whirl are dating. Nautica doesn’t believe me.”

 

Nautica vents, and throws her arms up in exasperation. “Why would I? I mean, I know that there’s obviously a lot about him that I don’t know, but _come on_ . It’s _Whirl_ we’re talking about. Whirl _and_ Brainstorm, no less. I don’t know Whirl very well, but Brainstorm? He’s too- too-”

 

“Narcissistic? Vain? Conceited?” Swerve helpfully provides.

 

“I was going to say ‘self-loving’, ‘cause it sounds nicer, but sure. Any of those work.” Nautica finishes her first shot and moves onto her second. Swerve grabs his cleaning towel and starts on it.

 

“Can’t say that Whirl is any better, though.” Swerve muses. “But what kind of romance would the two of them have anyways? The only things they have in common are a hunger for destruction and a need for recognition.”

 

They sit in silence for a moment, each of them thinking of a possible answer. Nautica finishes off her shots. Skids downs the rest of his engex. Swerve refills his own cup.

 

“I’ll get proof.” Skids says suddenly. He slides his cup over to Swerve, and turns to leave.

 

Nautica grabs his arm. “I’m coming with you, just because I don’t trust you not to get in trouble on your own.”

 

Swerve grabs their glasses and starts to clean. He feels like he’s always cleaning glasses. It’s almost as if the action acts as an interlude, or a transition to another, more interesting scene. He pushes the thought out of his processor; he’s been feeling a lot like a character in someone else’s narrative a lot lately, and continuing with that line of thought is only going to make it worse.

 

Just as he sets the glasses back where they belong, Tailgate’s dragging Cyclonus over to the counter. Although it’s plainly obvious that Tailgate has nowhere near the amount of strength required to actually force Cyclonus to move, he still puts up a token resistance as they near the bar.

 

“Hi Swerve!” Tailgate waves. “Can I get something sweet?” Swerve nods and starts pulling garnishes from underneath the counter- cobalt, nickel, silver- then mixes it with double-filtered energon. Unlike Nautica, Tailgate is no snob when it comes to engex. As long as it’s bearably sweet, he’ll take it. “Cyclonus, you want anything? I can pay.” He makes those little puppy dog eyes at him, like he always does.

 

Cyclonus vents and shakes his head. “I’ll have whatever Black label engex that you recommend. And I will pay.”

 

Tailgate doesn’t seem too put out by Cyclonus’ rejection; Quite honestly, Swerve thinks that he’d be happy no matter what Cyclonus does, as long as they’re together.

 

Swerve presents the two of them with their drinks, and starts to tidy up behind the bar. He sweeps up the flavorings on the floor, and wipes away engex spilled on the counter by previous patrons. He keeps an audio receptor tuned to their conversation, out of friendly concern of course. Not at all because he’s a gossip or anything.

 

“What’s wrong with having movie night at our place? I just thought that it’d be nice to suggest, since we never invite anyone over.” Tailgate retracts his faceplate, and sips his energon through a curly straw. Somehow he doesn’t at all seem embarrassed by the fact, which quite honestly, Swerve is amazed at.

 

Cyclonus takes his energon in a single draught, as per usual, and carefully sets the cup on the left of him. It’s an old bar symbol, meaning that he wants a refill. He’s one of the few bots on board who still keep to such customs, but Swerve appreciates it. Anything is better than having Siren yell at you for a solid fifteen minutes to get your attention as you deal with refilling everyone else’s cups.

 

Swerve unlocks his cabinet to retrieve the bottle, and pours him a modest glassful. “I prefer keeping our hab-suite private. I like having one room for ourselves.”

 

“But Cyclonus, these are our friends.”

 

“ _Your_ friends.” He corrects kindly. “They have stopped hating me, but we are far from being friends. And even so, I would like it if you would kindly ask to host it elsewhere.”

 

Tailgate stops drinking and grabs Cyclonus’ arm. “But it’s tonight? It’s tacky to change locations so late, and-”

 

“I can host it.” Swerve interrupts. Cyclonus turns at the sound of his voice, and Swerve forces himself not to jump. “You guys can say that I begged you to let me host it or something, and no one will have to know. Promise.”

 

If Tailgate had a mouth, Swerve knows that he’d be grinning. “Thankyou thankyou thankyou thankyou!”

 

Swerve shrugs. “No big deal. That’s what friends do, after all. And you _and_ Cyclonus are friends of mine.” He emphasizes the friends part the best he can without being dreadfully obvious, but he’s pretty sure it was obvious. Cyclonus’ frown lessens anyways.

 

“Thank you.” Cyclonus rumbles. He finishes off his glass, and the two of get pulled back into their own little conversation. Off in one of the corners, Whirl and Huffer are coming to blows.

 

Swerve sighs, and pages Ultra Magnus. All’s in an evening at Swerve’s, he thinks fondly.

  



End file.
